Assassins gun down two young journalists in Juárez

Borderzine contributor Jago Molinet wrote this story in the newsroom of El Diario of El Paso a few hours after two young colleagues were gunned down in Juarez, Mexico. Molinet told me he wrote this in anger and frustration and as he wrote, his anger and frustration only grew. As I translated the article into English, I saw that he also wrote this lament with love, love for his fallen brothers and love for a profession that too often in Mexico today demands a journalist’s life.

How can we escape from that terrible ghost that steals our dreams as well as our lives?

To be a journalist in Mexico you have to have guts, but be invisible. You have to be a Don Quixote in this profession. You ask yourself if it is possible to guillotine fear and engage again in the day to a day routine of news gathering, again be one of those who truly, fearlessly, love truth.

Luis Carlos Santiago Orozco and Carlos Manuel Sanchez Colunga had just started careers and didn’t know fear, although they had to wander daily in its jaws.

What happened yesterday in that mall parking lot was a cold-blooded abortion of lives barely born. A murder born from the climate of fear that grips this city, the fear of them, those killers, who we now dignify by identifying them in news articles a s “armed commandos” or “unidentified armed men.”

Luis Carlos and Carlos Manuel never imagined that the weekend marking the celebration of the bicentennial of Mexican independence would turn into the dark messenger that would cut short their lives.

The young journalists had just begun to see the sunrise and shadows of their lives. They had just begun to experience the satisfaction of a job well done in a difficult profession.

Yesterday, I saw men cry and women curse with the worst words that a human being can utter. It was a mixture of pain, sadness and desperation, yes, desperation. They hadn’t known the victims, but they saw their own reflection in these truncated lives.

The news sounded again in the newsroom. “Breaking News: Two reporters from El Diario attacked in Ciudad Juárez. One photojournalist for El Diario de Juárez died and one was wounded.”

They had gone to lunch. The shooting occurred in the parking lot of the Rio Grande Mall, a shopping center located between López Mateos and Avenida Paseo Triunfo de la República.

They rode in a gray Nissan Platina. Orozco was driving and died instantly. Sanchez was badly wounded. He was taken to emergency services.

According to www.diario.com.mx, Orozco had worked at El Diario since late May and had high hopes of developing his career in photojournalism there. Sanchez Colunga was an intern who showed promise according to a coworker. “He’s good. He has a future in journalism,” he said.

The same source said the two young men had spent the morning attending a photography class at El Diario, just one block away from where they were gunned down.

Following the crime, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ, for its acronym in English) demanded action to stop the wave of attacks against Mexican journalists.

“The issue should be placed on the national agenda of priorities,” said CPJ coordinator for Latin America, Carlos Lauria.

This was shared with me by a journalist who worked in Mexico for some years. This tragedy, and the many others like it, must stop. I don’t care if the cartels battle and kill each other, but more often than not, they kill innocent people. There is no redemption for such cowardly actions.

ASTA CUANDO!! ASTA CUANDO! Senior Obama lets see what youre REALLY made of…. Stand up and be counted Women children grandmothers grandfathers are as we speak getting killed all these BEAUTIFUL news people dying for the XXXX!!!if youre having problems conviencing the rest of your boys remind them of how manny we brought with us from all the wars weve fought that is of course if we too are in this [drug war]but if you have dust bunnies in your hair we understand really we do!!!!!!